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People and History

The Music Hall founded by Andrew Carnegie
opened on May 5, 1891, with a concert featuring the American debut of
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, and was at once heralded as a triumph for
music and architecture. Read more.

Clive Gillinson became Executive and Artistic Director of Carnegie Hall in July 2005, having been appointed the previous season. Read more.

A Short History of Carnegie Hall

The Music Hall founded by Andrew Carnegie opened on May 5, 1891, with a concert featuring the American debut of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, and was at once heralded as a triumph for music and architecture. Designed by William B. Tuthill, the building was a self-contained performing arts complex with three auditoriums, and it quickly became known simply as “Carnegie Hall” in recognition of the great industrialist, whose second career in charitable work set a new standard in philanthropy.

Tchaikovsky’s
opening-night appearance set
an auspicious precedent for the array of classical musicians and
conductors for whom the Hall would become the essential venue in the
United States.
Henceforth, a success at Carnegie Hall would be the litmus test of
greatness. Among the artists who have appeared at Carnegie Hall
throughout the years are Maria Callas, Enrico Caruso, Pablo Casals,
Jascha Heifetz, Josef Hofmann, Vladimir Horowitz, Gustav Mahler, Sergei
Rachmaninoff, Arthur Rubinstein, Arturo Toscanini, Leopold Stokowski,
George Szell, and Bruno Walter. The great American orchestras have been a
staple of Carnegie Hall programming since the Hall’s first decade, when
both the Boston Symphony and Chicago Symphony made their first visits.
Over the years it has become a home away from home for the orchestras of
Philadelphia,
Cleveland,
Pittsburgh,
St. Louis,
Cincinnati,
and Washington, DC,
among others. Also calling the Carnegie Hall stage home are such
international symphonic ensembles, including the philharmonic orchestras
of Berlin
and Vienna, the
Amsterdam Concertgebouw, and the Kirov Orchestra.

Early
jazz was first heard at Carnegie Hall
in 1912, in a concert of early African-American music by James Reese
Europe’s Clef Club Orchestra. The Hall has since featured a cavalcade of
jazz greats that has included Fats Waller, W.C. Handy, Louis Armstrong,
Count Basie, Billie Holiday, Dizzy Gillespie, Ella Fitzgerald, Charlie
Parker, Oscar Peterson, Sarah Vaughan, Gerry Mulligan, Mel Tormé, Miles
Davis, and John Coltrane. A 1938 concert by Benny Goodman and his band,
one of the most celebrated events in Carnegie Hall history, marked a
turning point in the public acceptance of swing. Duke Ellington made his
Carnegie Hall debut in 1943 with the New York Premiere of his tone poem
Black, Brown, and Beige.

In 1925—six years after Andrew Carnegie’s
death—Mrs. Carnegie sold the Hall to New York realtor Robert E. Simon. When it was announced in the mid-1950s that
the New York Philharmonic would move to a new performing arts center,
Carnegie Hall was put up for sale; however, the only parties interested
in purchasing it were developers. In September 1957, Life
magazine published a now-infamous artist’s
rendering of a red office skyscraper proposed by developers to go up on
the site of Carnegie Hall. The date of March 31, 1960, was set for its
demolition.

Although
many wanted to save the Hall, and
several committees to help rescue it were formed, it was only at the
eleventh hour that the Committee to Save Carnegie Hall, headed by Isaac
Stern, was able to stop the impending demolition. On May 16, 1960, as a
result of special state legislation, New York City
was permitted to purchase Carnegie Hall for $5 million. A new nonprofit
organization, The Carnegie Hall Corporation, was chartered, and to this
day it manages the building and its operations. Isaac Stern served as
President of the Corporation for over four decades, until his death in
September 2001.

Carnegie Hall thrived throughout the 1960s
and ‘70s, hosting renowned artists such as Judy Garland, Vladimir
Horowitz, the Beatles, Frank Sinatra, Itzhak Perlman, and Luciano
Pavarotti. By the late 1970s, however, concerns were mounting about the
physical condition of the Hall, and a 1981 architectural evaluation
showed a serious need for renovation. Carnegie Hall celebrated the 25th
anniversary of its “saving” by announcing a $60 million capital
campaign committed to the restoration and renovation of the building. On
May 18, 1986, Carnegie Hall closed its doors and on December 15 of the
same year reopened with a completely refurbished main lobby, box office,
Recital Hall, Main Hall, and backstage area.

In
1987, the Recital Hall was renamed Joan
and Sanford I. Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall in recognition of the
long-standing generosity and support of current Carnegie Hall Chairman
Sanford I. Weill and his wife. Carnegie Hall’s Rose
Museum
opened in April 1991, when it began displaying historical memorabilia
from the Hall’s archives, as well as special exhibitions relating to
themes in concert programming. In January 1997, the Main Hall was
dedicated as Isaac Stern Auditorium.

Carnegie
Hall announced a Composer’s Chair
for the first time in its history in January 1995. Ellen Taaffe Zwilich
began her four-year term as the inaugural appointee in July of that
year, and she served as a collaborator in many aspects of the Hall’s
activities, including contemporary music programming, the commissioning
program, and educational projects. September 1999 marked the beginning
of Pierre Boulez’s tenure as holder of the newly named Richard and
Barbara Debs Composer’s Chair at Carnegie Hall. Mr. Boulez was succeeded
by composer John Adams in the fall of 2003. Beginning in the 2007–2008 season, the Debs
Composer’s Chair was
reconfigured as a one-year position, then held by composer Thomas Adès.
Composer Elliott Carter celebrated his 100th birthday during his
Composer’s Chair residency in 2008–2009 and was recently succeeded by
current Debs Composer Louis Andriessen (2009–2010).

Other
recent programming initiatives include
several signature series: Making Music,
featuring conversations with and the performance of works by
living composers; and Perspectives, in
which select musicians are invited to explore their musical
individuality and create their own concert series in collaboration with
other musicians and ensembles Previous Perspectives artists have included conductor and
pianist Daniel Barenboim; conductors Pierre Boulez, James Levine,
Michael Tilson Thomas, and David Robertson; violinist Gidon Kremer;
cellist Yo-Yo Ma; pianists Pierre-Laurent Aimard, Leif Ove Andsnes,
Martha Argerich, Emanuel Ax, Maurizio Pollini, Peter Serkin, and Mitsuko
Uchida; soprano Dawn Upshaw; bass-baritone Thomas Quasthoff; the
Emerson String Quartet; Senegalese vocalist Youssou N’Dour; Brazilian
singer-songwriter Caetano Veloso; Indian classical tabla player Zakir
Hussain; and experimental rocker David Byrne.

Plans
were announced in January 1999 to
renovate Carnegie Hall’s lower level into a flexible hall for
performance and education. The space had served various purposes in its
first century, including a medium-sized auditorium called the Carnegie
Lyceum and the Carnegie Hall Cinema movie theater. The new performance
space, located directly beneath Isaac Stern Auditorium, opened in
September 2003 as Judy and Arthur Zankel Hall at Carnegie Hall. The
completion of Zankel Hall represented Carnegie Hall’s return to its
founder’s vision of three great halls of varying sizes all under one
roof. Zankel Hall opened on September 12, 2003, with a two-week Opening
Festival of 23 events representative of its season programming, from
classical, jazz, world, and pop music to family concerts and education
programs. The technologically advanced venue, which seats more than 600,
can be configured in a number of ways and features high-performance
communications networks that allow for multimedia productions and
interactive educational activities.

Also
in September 2003, Carnegie Hall
established The Weill Music Institute in honor of Board Chairman Sanford
I. Weill. The Weill Music Institute uses the resources of Carnegie
Hall’s three stages in a comprehensive variety of acclaimed music
education programs. The Institute reaches a broad audience—ranging from
preschoolers to adults, concertgoers to emerging professional musicians,
in the New York
metropolitan region, across the United
States, and around
the world—through school-based programs, Carnegie Hall Family Concerts,
free Neighborhood Concerts, adult education programs, and Professional
Training Workshops with internationally renowned artists and performers.

In January 2007, The Academy was launched as initiated by Carnegie
Hall’s Executive and Artistic Director Clive Gillinson in partnership
with Joseph W. Polisi, President of The Juilliard School. A two-year
program of Carnegie Hall, The Juilliard School, and The Weill Music
Institute in partnership with the New York City Department of Education,
The Academy is designed to develop the skills and values necessary for
careers that combine musical excellence with education, community
engagement, and advocacy. The program serves postgraduate musicians with
opportunities to perform in concert halls, to teach in public schools,
to engage in local communities and college campuses, and to support this
work through professional development. The program reflects the belief
that the artist of tomorrow will require both the ability to perform at
the highest level and the capacity to give back to the community,
inspiring the next generation of musicians and music lovers. A
partnership with Skidmore
College
that began in the 2007–08 season will also bring performances and
educational events to the Saratoga Springs
community.

In
November 2007, Carnegie Hall launched its
first major international festival, Berlin in Lights.
Along with partner venues throughout New
York City, Berlin in Lights
featured close to 50 events over 17 days capturing a snapshot of
contemporary Berlin, the city that today has reemerged as one of the
world’s centers of artistic expression and forward thinking.

The following fall, in partnership with the
New York Philharmonic, Carnegie Hall presented Bernstein:
The Best of All
Possible Worlds which
commemorated the 90th anniversary of Leonard Bernstein’s birth, and the
50th anniversary of his appointment as music director of the New York
Philharmonic and featured more than 30 events in seven different venues
throughout New York City.
The following March, acclaimed soprano Jessye Norman curated a festival
titled HONOR!: A Celebration of the African American
Cultural Legacy which saluted the
enduring vitality, influence, and creativity of African American culture
through a collection of close to 20 concerts and recitals, lectures,
panel discussions, exhibitions, and educational programs at Carnegie
Hall, Apollo Theater, The Cathedral of St. John the Divine, and other
venues throughout New York City.

Carnegie
Hall continues to present major
international and national festivals to offer audiences opportunities to
undertake compelling journeys of discovery, which include not only
extraordinary concerts at Carnegie Hall, but also films, lectures,
readings, museum exhibits, and more, through partnerships with other
cultural institutions. Equally important to each festival are
educational programs in the New York City
schools, designed to stimulate the imagination of students and nurture
their creativity.

Today, Carnegie Hall presents more than 180 concerts each year—from
orchestral performances, chamber music, recitals, and choral music to
folk, world, musical theater, and jazz. The venue is also home to over
500 independently produced events each year. Through the work of The
Weill Music Institute at Carnegie Hall, wide-reaching music education
programs serve people in the New
York City metropolitan region, across the United States,
and around the world, playing a central role in Carnegie Hall's
commitment to making great music accessible to as many people as
possible. Continually building on its long-standing tradition of
excellence and innovation, Carnegie Hall remains one of the world’s
premier concert venues.